CHAPTER THIRTEEN
alone at midnight
DINNER IS A QUIET AFFAIR. It is Wednesday and Violet's face is still flushed from skating at break-neck speed from La Push all the way home and her father sits at the head of the dining table scrolling through emails on his phone. Between them, the silence is thick, but it's not a silence from the lack of words, rather, too many words that need to be said, though neither of them knew how. And so, in true Korchak fashion, they leave it for another more coherent day where the fragile diplomacy between father and daughter isn't so thin.
It is two in the morning when Violet calls Wren. Or, rather, leaves about fifty voicemails until Wren picks up when she gets out of bed, which is exactly how she sounds—groggy and disoriented—when she answers Violet's guiltless greeting.
"What." Wren groans, voice muffled. There's some shuffling in the background, static leaking through the receiver, as Wren drags herself out of slumber to entertain her vicious older sister. "It's six in the morning, you absolute psychopath."
With a funny little half-smile, Violet envisions her sister jamming her face into the pillow like an ostrich staking its head into the dirt—and is that the slightest twinge of a little London accent creeping into Wren's words...? Violet shudders to think it. Kicking the wheels of her skateboard as she paces around her room, unable to sleep because there were shadows moving in periphery and now that her heart rate can't seem to settle and the lights in her room all turned up to the maximum brightness to stave off the darkness, force them back out into the hedges below her window, sleep had sped off, miles away into the inevitable sunrise, leaving her in the dust. Restless and clocking into hyper-awareness of her surroundings, Violet's left to her own devices. It didn't seem fair to wake her friends up, especially when they were too far away to do anything, and Kit had a soccer match later in the evening. Plus, she'd done the math. It's about nigh time for Wren to get up for school, anyway.
—YOU HAVE OTHER WAYS TO DISTRACT YOURSELF—
Fingers flying to her wrist, to the cuts that'd begun to scab and itch, red tally marks stuffed with plasma and blood, Violet winces. The iron voice in her head had taken to mocking her, enticing her back to old habits.
—THEY'RE IN THE BATHROOM, VIOLET, IN THE CUPBOARD BEHIND THE SINK. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS...—
No, she'd thought, firmly, as her hands began to shake and her resolve began to falter at the edges, a flickering mirage. She couldn't. Even though the compulsion was there, to feel the metal biting into her flesh, to feel the sting sliding against her porcelain skin. Count her vices and lay out her weaknesses so she could excise it from her body, watch it all bleed out in her sink, turn the water rose pink with vengeance. No, I won't, she'd thought. Sage had seen her scars by accident. The scars she kept so carefully guarded under long sleeves and sharp stares. Nobody touched Violet Korchak. Not unless you could feel the same afflictions too. It's a lonely world, up here in her ivory tower. Now that Sage knew, she had to be more careful not to slip up again.
And so, she'd taken to calling. Reaching out. Talking to people helps, is what her therapist says. Talking, making meaningful connections, reinforcing bonds... All that was supposed to help, right?
"Watch that attitude, birdie. How's mum treating you?" Violet mocks, pushing her window open and shaking a cigarette out of the half-crushed carton procured from her pocket. Balancing her phone between her ear and her shoulder, Violet sticks the cigarette in her mouth and cups a hand around her lighter as a flame sparks to life. She draws in a musty inhale, and feels the tension drain from her shoulders as the smoke hits her lungs.
"Fine," Wren grunts, but it's without heat. There's more shuffling, the sound of porcelain clapping, and then a dull whistle siphoning through the static-permeated silence. Violet arched a brow.
"Are you peeing right now?" Smoke billows out of her mouth. She follows the trajectory of the small plume of haze, spiralling with the wind, up into the starless night sky, gazing back down at her with its miserable, unblinking tenebrosity.
Wren falls silent.
"Maybe?" There's the hint of a smile in her voice. Violet can hear it. The childish coyness curling her tone. It's with a tiny pinch in her cold, black heart that Violet realises she misses Wren's smile. There's only so much a phone call can do when there's oceans separating two people who used to only have a bedroom wall between them. Abruptly, a wave of regret crashed down on her. She should've spent more time with Wren when she was around. Back then, before the madness of the past four years had crippled her life, Violet had always stuck to Luka, sidelined Wren with the excuse that she was too small to connect with. All Wren had wanted and whined for was to hang out with Violet, and Violet, in true ignorance of the older sibling, didn't want to be saddled with minding Wren, the burdensome pest, when she could be outside learning new skateboard tricks with Luka, who was cooler and less annoying and didn't mind having her around. Violet purses her lips, exhaling another smoky breath as though she could expel the guilt from her lungs. It doesn't help.
"Remember what I said about not giving me that bullshit..."
"It's not that bad," Wren says, relenting, though there's little conviction in her tone. A squeak of a faucet turning. The quiet static of water gushing from a tap. It cuts off after a few seconds. Wren sighs. "I mean, she's a little bit overbearing sometimes, but I suppose it's just because I'm the only one in the house now when there used to be you to nag at for being such a tomboy and..."
"She had Luka to coddle," Violet finishes, voice tight, as Wren trails off, unsure whether to bring him up.
A rustle in the hedges below catches Violet's attention. She sucks in a sharp breath as the leaves begin to tremble, and the rustling grows louder. Wren says something, but Violet is only half listening. Her heart jams in her throat. Her pulse roars in her ears. Something is coming. A head pokes out of the bushes and Violet has to choke down a scream. Yellow eyes glare back.
She lets out a sigh of relief.
In a flash, the racoon scuttles off to somewhere else, darting away into the darkness. The tension bleeds off her muscles. Violet sucks in a stabilising breath.
"...Hello? Vi? You still there?"
Shit, Violet swears inwardly. She'd forgotten about Wren.
"Yeah," Violet says in a breathless whisper, not daring to look down at her hands incase they were shaking, but bringing her cigarette to her lips to take a drag. She rakes a hand through her hair, tugging sharply on the ends. Spikes of pain jab her scalp, whetting her focus. There's nothing out there. You're safe. "Yeah, I'm here."
—ARE YOU?—
"Woah, you okay?" Wren asks. There's a frown in her voice, concern pricking her tone.
—SOMETHING'S OUT THERE—
"I'm fine," Violet snapped, not wanting to pursue the matter anymore, but still eyeing the hedges below her window in wary suspicion.
"If you're sure..."
"Yes." Violet insists, slightly exasperated, and a little annoyed. Both at Wren for not dropping the subject when Violet so direly requested it (albeit indirectly), and at herself for letting her focus slip. All because of a fucking racoon. "What were we talking about?"
"Um— oh!" Wren exclaims. There's some more shuffling in the background, and Violet strains to listen as what sounds like a door opening and shutting and another voice—a voice she hadn't heard in years, and doesn't really want to hear again—cuts in. "Hold on, mum wants to talk to you."
"Mum?" Violet echoes, disbelief tinging her voice. Though, she supposed living in a disgustingly British community—especially in London, with their mother's socialite friends—would grant Wren some influence on her vernacular. Also, the last person Violet wants to talk to is her mother, who, by the sound of it, seems to have seized Wren's phone.
"Hello, Violet," her mother greets, "how're you holding up?"
"Mom," Violet grunts, not entirely sure what to say to the woman who'd agreed to let their father send her away. Who hadn't exactly called her insane, when she'd told her family of the things she'd seen that night in the parking lot, four years ago, the night Luka was taken. Her father had called it some form of trauma. Her mother had called it something worse: a cry for attention, a vicious lie. All her mother had done was cling to her rosary and pray, that night, for mercy on her daughter's soul—her daughter, who, having given her statement (which nobody believed), had somehow condemned God for creating such creatures. Creatures that, logically, did not exist because "God makes no mistakes, and God would never create monsters to torment us". And so she'd prayed. Prayed for the Lord's forgiveness in the case of her lying daughter. She never listened to a word Violet had said. Only that she was never to speak of such unholy things. Four years later, and Violet doubted her mother would've sustained any change in her faith.
At the time, Violet didn't think telling her mother that she was an atheist was there smarter move, but it was a move she made all the same. Thus, landing herself in hot soup the moment she'd landed in California, where the first boarding school she was to attend was an all-girls Catholic school. Safe to say, Violet didn't stick around long enough to be converted into anything else but a vengeful bitch.
"I just worry about you, honey. Lord knows—"
"I am perfect, Mother," Violet sneered. "My brother is dead, you took my sister and moved her hundreds of miles away—" and my father won't even look me in the eyes anymore, monsters are real, my best friend is a werewolf, my brother's taker is back, i have voices in my head that won't go away— "but your God left me alive." Your God left me behind.
She could practically see the frown on her mother's stringent features. The deep lines of her face pulling, her fingers brushing the pearls around her neck in astonishment, as though taken aback by Violet's vehement acidity. I did not raise a daughter to be a menace.
"The Lord looks after us all."
"But not Luka, huh?" Violet snapped, not caring that she might be hurting her mother's feelings. She was never one to save feelings, anyway. It was a universal truth that Violet Korchak got what she wanted, when she wanted, and it didn't matter who got caught in the crossfire, or who got hurt in the process. As long as the goal was achieved, nothing else mattered. And right now, Violet wanted her mother to get out into her thick skull that things did not happen because some higher power was playing dollhouse with the world—things happened because nothing made sense, and nothing about this world was meant to make sense. Ever. "So your precious Lord decided to take a vacation on the night that monster took him? Why was he the exception? If your Lord exists at all, how could he let this tragedy befall our family? Why did you and Dad split up? Why did he let Luka die?"
"Violet," her mother barked. "Do not question His ways—"
"You don't know what you're talking about," Violet said, letting out a laugh that sliced the Earth to ribbons. Rage was a flash flood tearing through her veins, threatening to rip and rend the world to pieces. "Face it. You go to church to pray to an empty sky. There is no Heaven. There is no Hell. There are no gods. There is only what happens here and now and no higher power or divine force has control of that. You just don't want to own up to the fact that everything happened because we are alone in this whole universe."
"God—"
"Do not speak of such intangible things," Violet cut in, curt tone freezing the invisible phone lines and all the distance stretching over the miles separating them. She ashed her cigarette out on the window sill and flicked the butt into the hedges below. "Unless you have something to say to me that actually makes sense, do not contact me. And don't you dare drag Wren into this."
Before her mother could get another word out, Violet hung up.
Inhaling slowly through her nose, Violet tipped her head back, rolling her eyes skyward. After four counts, she let out a shaky exhale. Then she glanced back down at her phone. At her abysmally short contact list—she never made it a habit to keep in contact with people from her old schools, no matter how brief her stay, she wouldn't miss them and they weren't interesting enough to keep in her pocket, and the only one who ever was, is dead—which bore only a handful of names, but names she knew she could trust.
The first name on the list she contemplated was Kit. Kit, who Violet knew would be here in a heartbeat, even if it was two in the morning and she'd been asleep since ten because, unlike Violet, her life had structure. After a couple moments of deliberation, Violet decided against it. Kit had a soccer match tomorrow, and she needed her sleep or else her focus would be off. Violet didn't want to be responsible for affecting the quality of her performance. Then there was Sage, who Violet took less time in making her final decision about. Sage was only human. Just like Violet. And even though Sage would be awake at this hour, probably counting her spoils from today's weed harvesting, and could skate up to Forks at breakneck speed along the roads they were all-too familiar with, the vampire—Luka's taker—was still lurking, and Violet would rather Sage stay home safe.
That left one person.
Frankly, Violet doesn't know why she so desperately needs someone with her now. Her father might be in the other bedroom just three doors down from hers, but Violet is still, and ultimately always will be, alone in this house of ivory and riches. Where there used to be life, there is only silence and solitude.
—AND THE MONSTERS IN YOUR HEAD, THE SHADOWS ALWAYS FOLLOW YOU—
In her peripheral vision, she'll always have eyes watching her from the darkness. That feeling that she's being watched, being toyed with, it's never going to go away. For just one night Violet doesn't want to have to deal with the painful onset of paranoia, of blood-red eyes that might've followed her from the parking lot four years ago, to her nightmares, to the hills of California, to the shadows in her bedroom, to the darkness behind her eyelids. That fear will always sit inside her, manifesting, the beginning of cracks in her stone exterior, spreading outward, until she falls apart. Tonight, she's tired. Tired of constantly being on guard. Of fighting the world on her own. Tired of being afraid.
In all actuality, Paul Lahote might be a bastard with a temper issue, but at least he picks up immediately instead of making her wait, with the anxiety clawing at her insides consuming her organ by organ.
Upon answering her call, it's obvious he's annoyed and ready to rip whoever interrupted his sleep into pieces when he growls, "What couldn't fucking wait until the morning—"
"It's me," Violet cuts in, relief flooding her veins. There's a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
"Are you hurt?" Paul demands, instantly snapping to attention despite the rude awakening. "What happened, Vi?"
Backing away from the window, Violet shuts her eyes. "Nothing."
"Okay...?" Paul says, hesitantly, confusion tinging his tone. "Are you sure?"
"I just... This was a mistake," Violet says, quickly back pedalling. "Forget it—"
"Woah! Wait, wait," Paul exclaimed, just as Violet pulled the phone away from her ear, finger hovering over the end-call button. "I'm awake already, just tell me. What do you need?"
Violet pursed her lips. "I guess I just wanted to talk to someone."
"I'll be there in fifteen."
"Paul, wait—"
Too late, he'd already hung up.
True to his word, however, fifteen minutes later, as she was busying herself with her physics textbook, hardly absorbing the material but desperately trying to distract herself from the shadows moving in the corners of her room, shadows creeping in through her window, growing yellow eyes blinking back at her, something pelted her window.
Violet jumped, the textbook startled from her grip.
Another sharp plink of something hitting the window pane got her moving: out of her chair, to the window, which she shoved open, revealing Paul, in a pair of grey sweatpants and a white shirt, a handful of pebbles in his hand, standing in the hedges below. The scene was so ludicrous Violet almost laughed. Rolling her eyes, she motioned for him to wait there.
"I'll open the front door for you," she hissed.
"No need," Paul said, waving her off. "Just stand aside."
In retrospect, Violet didn't understand why she didn't question his cryptic instruction, since her room was on the third floor of the house, and there was no way he could climb up there without doing some damage, werewolf or not, but she stood aside anyway. There was a dull thump against her window sill, and when Violet peered over, Paul was clinging onto it, levering himself into her room without effort. Unwittingly, Violet couldn't stop staring at the muscles in his arms that rippled and strained. When he landed on her floor without incident and shot her an infuriating smirk, Violet lifted a brow, despite being mildly impressed.
"Couldn't sleep?" Paul asked, sweeping a curious gaze over her room, noting the bare walls, the barren desk—dustless, but unused, since she did most of her studying (if she even studied at all) at either Kit's or Sage's house—and the lack of a life over the polished floorboards. A small grin tugged at his lips when he spotted the skateboard propped up against the side of her desk. "Jeez, your room could pass a military inspection. I thought girls liked decorating and shit? Oh, I take that back. That might've been a little bit stereotypical of me."
Leaping backwards onto her bed, Violet shrugged. "I'm hardly in here anymore, so I never saw a point." Crossing her legs and hugging a pillow to her chest, Violet patted the spot beside her. "Come, sit."
"Honest to God, you spend way too much time at my house," Paul said, complying and plunking himself on her bed, recanting the events of the day, where she'd spent her entire afternoon at Kit's house, making a ruckus in her backyard skatepark with Kit until curfew. Wrinkling her nose, Violet chucked a pillow at him.
"Why're you complaining?" Violet smirked, narrowing her eyes, a dangerous glint flashing across her expression. "You should be honoured. Didn't you used to have a crush on me?"
Paul scowled. "You're never gonna let that go, are you?"
"I still can't quite believe it, if I'm being honest." Arching a brow, Violet slanted Paul an accusatory look. "I mean, earthworms in my shoes? Really?"
"It was so stupid," Paul said, scrunching his face up, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck in embarrassment, "please never bring it up to me ever again, I cringe even just thinking about it. Not the liking you part, by the way, just... the way I went about it."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you did that to get the attention of every girl you liked—"
"Moving on," Paul said, raising his voice over Violet's, clapping a hand over her mouth to shut her up.
Bemused, Violet glowered at Paul. His hand was warm, burning against her skin. A flame that blazed from her face down to her stomach. Her first instinct was to pull a knife on him, but her knives were under her pillow, out of reach, instead of the sheaths she wore beneath her sleeves during the day. Then again, Paul was no threat. He was a threat, but not to her. Granted, considering he seemed to be made of stone, blades would probably do minimal damage on him.
So she stuck out her tongue instead.
Potent disgust flashed across Paul's face as he jerked his hand away. "Did you just lick me?"
Violet merely smirked.
A devilish gleam sparked in Paul's eyes as he levelled her with a contemplative stare. Moments before he lunged, swiping his palm down her face and smearing her own saliva down her cheek. Alarmed, Violet bit back a shriek as they went down, with Paul attempting to smother her with a pillow, hissing, you're such a little shit, as she kicked out, flailing and making futile efforts to shove him off. When the pillow lifted off her face at the moment she was just beginning to run out of air in her lungs from laughing too hard, Violet met Paul's burning stare with a breathless, but heatless, murmur, "You're a demon." She didn't think much of all the times they'd been all-up in each other's faces, blinded by the irritation that usually accompanied the proximity, until now, with Paul's dark eyes flickering over her features, tracing the edges of her face, his breath fanning over her skin, his arms caging her in on both sides of her head as his mouth tugged into a lopsided grin. She'd never seen him without a certain sharpness in his expression, and here he was, hovering over her, looking at her like she was something to be held onto rather than at arm's length.
Nobody in her life had looked at her like that—with the exception of Livvy, once upon a time. She'd seen Jared give Kit the same look once, but she'd always been an outsider to affection. All her life, Violet had been ice and steel. Razor tongue and something feared. You didn't look at the villain the way Paul was looking at her now. She'd never wanted someone to look away from her even more than now, when her brain was screaming: you're not meant to look at me like that, that's the way boys look at girls they want to kiss, and the only thing boys want from you is to get away before you make them rip out their dignity with their own hands.
And Violet's expression, once an uprising, now laid its armour down and then, the barest, briefest of burning smiles. For the briefest moment, Paul thought he'd forgotten how to inflate his lungs. And laying there, piled atop one another, with Paul's face moon-bright and stained red with surprise, Violet thought this gentleness would become a bad habit. Her pulse lurches. She doesn't know if it's fear or something else—something unthinkable—making her heartbeat roar in her ears, a hammer pounding into the silence, a murmuration of starlings beating their wings at once against her ribcage. It doesn't matter, a vicious voice snarled in the back of her head, you're not supposed to feel anything. There's no room in you.
"Vi... why am I here?" Paul asked, though there was no suspicion in it. Not: Why not someone else? Not: You shouldn't have called. Just a genuine curiosity as he rolled off her and flopped on his back on the other half of the bed, glancing at her with innocent eyes.
Already feeling the cold wash over her skin where Paul's searing warmth once was, Violet shrugged. "I just didn't want to be alone."
Paul raised a brow. "Are you worried about something?"
A beat too late, Violet said, "No. I'm never worried." Paranoid, yes, but worried?
"Did you get spooked?"
"You know why my parents sent me away?" Violet said, abruptly. Avoiding Paul's gaze, she turned her stare to her ceiling, the empty, bone-white void, a blank slate. Emptiness was better. There was something her father used to say, when she was a child: If there were no edges, hold onto the emptiness inside you. It's better than feeling. Emotions never ruled a Korchak. So she held onto it, her tone going flat. "I was going mad."
"You saw what you saw." She could hear the frown in his voice without even having to look.
"Not just that," Violet said, steel and thorns in her tone. A bitterness crept into her voice, snuck up on her like a bee sting. "I had to see a psychiatrist for psychotherapy. My father had a friend who could help me with my... problem. It wasn't only that I'd given a statement that was too bizarre—at least, to the regular person, who didn't know most things about the world—to be true. After that night, I think something in my brain just broke down. I started seeing things. Like, the shadows would start moving on their own accord, writhing, like ghosts. Sometimes they would come after me, sometimes they'd change shape. Sometimes they have eyes—red ones, like the... vampire who took Luka. I'm on-edge all the time. I have this voice in my head all the time, and it never says anything good. I can't shake the feeling that something—someone—is coming after me, playing cat-and-mouse, watching, waiting for me to let my guard down, taking their time. And I hate it. I'm... seeing a therapist, but some days I don't know if it's working or if I'm doing something wrong. Little things set me off. I can't be in the dark alone anymore." Violet sucked in a shuddering breath and hated herself for the unsteadiness. It wasn't like her. Violet Korchak was never afraid. Resentment washed up her throat like acid. She didn't know what she was telling Paul all of this. "I got scared by a fucking raccoon earlier. I just thought... that's it. That's the end, y'know?"
And I cut myself open to let it all out. Like I'm excising the madness from my veins. I keep count of my own vices.
But she didn't tell him that part. Nobody could know about that part. They'd lock her up without letting her get a word out. While she had unfinished business in Forks, she couldn't bare her neck to the vultures watching her every move. She was never going to be whole, and that was okay. It's why she held the world at arm's length, on the other side of a pointed blade. It's why she fought and pushed and fought some more.
"Are you scared of death or are you afraid of how you'd die?" Are you afraid to die at her hands? Was the unspoken question, hanging between them like a thread.
"Neither. Well, it depends." Violet flipped over, so she was lying on her stomach, peering down at Paul, who had his hands folded behind his head, pillowing his neck. This conversation, she could have, looking him in the eyes. "I don't care how or when I die, as long as it's on my own terms. If I die at seventy, perfect. I would've lived most of my life, done a lot of things I've wanted to do, I probably would've retired already—Sage would kill me if I died before my sixty-ninth birthday—"
Bafflement twisted Paul's features. "What?"
Violet rolled her eyes. "She says that on our sixty-ninth year on this planet, we have to call each other, at exactly four-twenty in the afternoon, on the twentieth of April, just to say, 'Nice...' and then immediately hang up. She's so weird."
"What a fucking crackhead."
"Hey," Violet said, narrowing her eyes, though her tone was empty of hostility. "That's my best friend you're talking about there."
"Alright," Paul said, rolling his eyes. "So you're not afraid of dying. Or how you'd die—on the condition that...?"
"My death must give my life meaning." I must finish my business here in Forks. I must unearth all the truths this deadbeat town has to hide. I have to know where my brother went. I have to know what happened to him. And most of all, the monster who took him... she has to die. She arched a brow at him in question. "What about you?"
"Me?" Paul sent her a half-hearted smirk before declaring, "I'm gonna live forever, baby. You're not getting rid of me. Ever."
Violet rolled her eyes. In the same vein, she didn't doubt him. Paul would stay on this stupid planet out of pure spite.
"Isn't forever kinda... miserable?"
"Not if you make the time count," Paul pointed out. "Don't you think so?"
Violet shrugged. "I don't know. I kind of like the idea of being able to see the end. There's not much point in living if all I have to shoulder is this... sickness. To me, anyway."
"I swear, you scare me so much sometimes," Paul breathed, something shattering in his voice. A thousand convoluted emotions flashed in his night-dark eyes as his brows creased. "Vi, you're not fucking broken. You're—"
"Look, I'm tired. I'm just talking shit, I don't know why I said that," Violet said, backtracking, tone like broken glass, the jagged edges perched on her tongue. "I don't know why I told you. If you tell anyone I'm seeing a shrink, I'll make you eat earthworms."
Paul snorted. "I wouldn't do that to you. You're my friend."
Violet cocked her head. "Are we friends?"
Lifting a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, Paul pinned her with a searching stare. "Do you trust me?"
"I do," Violet said, without having to think twice about her answer. "Do you trust me?"
With the tiniest grin, Paul flicked her on the nose. "Without a doubt."
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
it's been a phat minute since i wrote for this fic..... i hope u like the smidgen of paul x violet in this chapter.......